


stardust brought to life (we have only just begun)

by possibilist



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, Museum AU, its not super graphic? but if thats a trigger just skip the italics, the story will still make sense, theres a school shooting but its a flashback
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 03:51:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13022661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilist/pseuds/possibilist
Summary: 'you know that the moon is 1/4000th the size of the sun, but that the moon is 4000 times closer to the earth than the sun, which allows everyone on earth to see them as relatively the same size. it’s the only place in our solar system that this happens, and you think about this as you kiss clarke in the dead of winter, the stars pulled down into streetlamps and headlights.'clarke works at the hayden planetarium, lexa works at the museum of natural history. shes been through some shit but they get to fall in love & they're cute. museum au





	stardust brought to life (we have only just begun)

**Author's Note:**

> yall this is a treat bc i never post on here anymore happy holidays

**empowered by the universe to figure itself out**

**//**

_what we do know, and what we can assert without further hesitation, is that the universe had a beginning. the universe continues to evolve. and yes, every one of our body’s atoms is traceable to the big bang and to the thermonuclear furnaces within high-mass stars that exploded more than five billion years ago._

– neil degrasse tyson, _astrophysics for people in a hurry_

//

your shoulder still aches.

you try not to think about that, though, especially right now, because it’s the first snow of the year and it’s beautiful, and clarke waves to you, her cheeks flushed pink from the cold. it almost knocks you off your feet, how pretty she is, so you casually lean against the railing so you don’t fall down the stairs.

‘hey lex,’ she says, settling next to you, seemingly happy to stand on the stairs instead of heading to the planetarium where she’s supposed to be.

‘good morning, clarke.’

‘always so formal,’ she says, then tugs on your arm lightly before starting up the stairs. ‘octavia is in the café today, let’s get coffee for free before kane is here and can tell us not to.’

‘clarke—’

she rolls her eyes, tugs on your hand. ‘you can get hot chocolate or tea or whatever if you’re still on your insane kick to give up caffeine.’

‘that’s not—’

she stops and turns toward you, glaring. it’s soft, though, made softer by her tone: ‘it’s the first snow, lexa. live a little.’

you sigh and scuff your boot on the marble stairs once, then nod. ‘whatever. fine.’

clarke laughs and takes off again.

your stomach hurts sometimes too, aches all the way into your chest, into your shoulder, but you try not to think about that either. you think about the size of the universe instead, about how last year there were 23,237 recorded live trees in maine.

clarke doesn’t let go of your hand all the way to the fourth floor, and it maybe hurts a little less.

//

 

you’re trying to eat your pizza slowly, but you’re sweaty and starving and your hands are barely warming up from the cold but you don’t really care. anya had convinced you to join this stupid intermural hockey league this year—‘you can’t keep making excuses, alexandria, for the things you still love,’ and for a moment you were sure you weren’t talking about hockey’—and you’d wanted to get in a fight right then and there earlier when you’d seen clarke and raven and octavia cheering on the bleachers.

anya had laughed when you’d checked her into the boards, especially because you were on the same team, but the game is over now and you’re at a pizza place near the park that clarke had suggested, and she’s drinking wine and laughing and she’d convinced you to have some too.

you all walk to the subway together, and clarke doesn’t hesitate for a moment before giving you a long, warm hug, the same as always, even though you’re sweaty and probably smell terrible.

you have the impulse to kiss her cheek but you don’t, and when you’re icing your shoulder later that evening with anya, passing a bottle of bourbon back and forth while you watch reruns of  _game of thrones_ , she laughs a little when you  _smile_  at your phone.

‘is that clarke?’

you debate lying, but you’re really bad at it and you’re also drunk, so there’s no point. ‘yeah.’

‘she’s hot.’

you sigh and anya grins.

‘keep showing her those big hockey muscles,’ anya says, and you roll your eyes when she flexes, ‘and i’m sure she’ll reciprocate.’

‘fuck off.’

‘unbutton that polo every once in a while, lex.’

‘suck my dick, anya.’

she takes a swig of the bourbon and then hands it to you. ‘just take your shirt off during one of those sleepovers you chaperone.’

you cough on your mouthful of alcohol, and it burns all the way down your throat. ‘there are  _children_  there.’

anya just laughs, delighted, while you sulk, trying not to cough more.

‘you have abs, lexa, children or not.’

your cheeks burn and you try not to smile. you don’t let her have any more of your bourbon that night.

//

raven invites you to a post-finals party. you think it could either be the best or worst idea you’ve ever had, willfully allowing yourself to get drunk around clarke, who will also be getting drunk, but you really do try to act your age every now and again.

apparently, you’re having this party at clarke’s parents’ apartment, because they’re out of town for a conference her dad is presenting at. as you walk with raven, she tells you all about his work in robotics, because they’re friends, you guess? she keeps rubbing at her hip as you walk and you fish around in your backpack and find your trusty bottle of advil, offer her two without a word. she takes them without pausing, throws them back and swallows them without any water or anything, and then just keeps talking about stem cells and nanorobotics and she’s let you talk her ear off about endemic plant species in south africa, so you smile into your scarf all the way down park avenue.

 

//

clarke’s parents’ apartment is huge, as far as you’re concerned. you grew up in a little house in a little town on the coast of maine, and you didn’t want for anything—you’d had your tide pools and hockey skates and books, a pretty girl you loved and your uncle who would let you walk to the top of the light house with him at night.

but this is something altogether entirely, and you feel a little out of place in your sweater that has a hole in the sleeve and the same boots you wear everyday to work in the winter. raven doesn’t seem to care at all, though, and clarke skids in from the kitchen wearing a t-shirt (a very _tight_ , lowcut t-shirt that leaves very little to the imagination) and jeans, wool socks with little penguins on them, and she hugs you both at the same time, groaning when octavia changes the music blaring to bodak yellow because ‘i love this song too, guys, but it’s not even 9 and this is the sixth time they’ve put this on.’

clarke takes one look at the little bundt cake you’d brought—you’d made it in your dorm kitchen, it’s full of quinoa and pumpkin and you’d bought real powdered sugar over the top—and seems to kind of melt.

raven laughs. ‘griffin, how drunk are you already?’

clarke shrugs, tugging you both with her to the kitchen where lincoln smiles, so handsome, as he mixes drinks while octavia sits on the counter, swinging their legs and rapping every word to bodak yellow.

‘my parents took me to brunch before they flew out,’ clarke starts to explain.

‘and then we just kept goin,’ octavia says, turning to you with a grin. lincoln seems far more sober, but you think he might just be better at faking it.

‘well i guess we better catch up,’ raven says, and clarke and octavia cheer, handing you both a shot.

it feels like a bad idea, but it also feels like a _really_  good one.

//

clarke’s parents’ apartment has a rooftop garden, and it affords you an entire view of central park and the rest of the city, which you discover because clarke takes you there later, when the place is packed and you’re pretty sure you’ve heard bodak at least twelve times. you know you could call anya if you wanted to go home, but clarke is smiling and you should be cold, because it’s supposed to snow and it’s windy, but you’re warm.

‘anyway, okay, so like, yes, i want to be a surgeon,’ she explains, ‘but also we’re so young, you know, and i want to spend time with my friends and not have my mother breathing down my neck before residency in a billion years, because she’ll probably rig it so that i get matched with her program.’

‘it is one of the best in the country,’ you say, taking a sip of your beer. ‘you said so yourself.’

clarke leans close with a fond huff. ‘you’re supposed to be on my side, lexa.’

you laugh, and the motion brings you close to clarke, closer than you’d really meant to be. you swallow, suddenly far colder and more sober than you’d been seconds ago.

clarke’s eyes dart to your lips, and then your eyes, and then your lips again.

the wind whips your hair around your faces and you credit that for the tears in your eyes as you lean forward and kiss her.

you know that the moon is 1/4000th the size of the sun, but that the moon is 4000 times closer to the earth than the sun, which allows everyone on earth to see them as relatively the same size. it’s the only place in our solar system that this happens, and you think about this as you kiss clarke in the dead of winter, the stars pulled down into streetlamps and headlights.

the city, usually so loud, quiets.

//

you kiss her for a long time, until one of your sniffles snot from being so cold and the other laughs and she leads you back into her parents’ apartment. the party is winding down and you’re getting sleepy and when people start to leave and she invites you to stay the night, you want to say no but then you think of how tired you are and how much you want to be held.

she leads you to her old room, which is full of paintings and sketches and polariods, certificates of awards for a variety of academic achievements, a letterman jacket from her highschool still slung over her desk chair.

you run your fingers over it as she goes shuffles through her drawer for pajamas for you. ‘what’d you letter in?’

she laughs. ‘chess. i was nationally ranked, actually.’

‘wow,’ you say,  _delighted_. ‘that’s—‘

‘—nerdy, i know.’

‘no,’ you say. ‘i was going to say impressive.’

‘sure, sure,’ she says, laughing. she turns and hands you pajamas and you want to ask, maybe, how she can sense you don’t want to have sex, because you’d just kissed her for at least twenty minutes on a rooftop in manhattan and most people would probably get some mixed messages from that.

you’re so drunk you don’t really care about going into a bathroom or whatever at this point to change, because you’re pretty sure clarke doesn’t care at all, so you start to take your pants off while clarke changes too. ‘did you letter in anything?’

‘hockey,’ you say.

‘right,’ clarke says, slightly muffled by her shirt. ‘makes sense.’

‘do not tell anyone this, but i also lettered in jazz band.’

clarke lets out a laugh. and you turn to her as you slip into some of her worn, soft boxers. they’re a little big so you roll them up and she takes a deep breath and then lets it out through her nose. you smile—you’re a little pleased and a little apologetic—and then she starts to ask another question, something about a saxophone or a trumpet, as you pull your sweater over your head. you’re drunk so you’d _forgotten_ , for the first time in years, but when you go to deposit your sweater in a pile on top of your socks and jeans, clarke is quiet and fighting between staring at you and the corner of her room.

‘you’re my same age and you’re from maine,’ she says, things seemingly clicking into place.

you take your sweater and pull it over your head again, and your hands start shaking and your eyes press with tears.

‘lexa,’ she says, stepping toward you quickly, which only makes your heart race more. you’re drunk, you’re  _drunk_ , and you know you’re safe but your ears are ringing. ‘i’m sorry i just—i didn’t—god,’ she says. maybe she notices you trembling, maybe she notices the way you’ve seemingly forgot how to button your pants, but she straightens up and says, ‘lexa,’ just firmly enough of your to meet her eyes.

they’re so blue. you want to find comfort in them, and maybe you will, but everything is too loud right now.

‘i have to go,’ you get out, barely, all gritted teeth and you remember what it was like to choke on your own blood.

‘lexa,’ she says again, differently this time, pleading. ‘i’m _sorry_.’

you shake your head. ‘i’m not mad,’ you say, and you’re surprised you were able to express a thought as coherent as that. ‘it’s not—i have to go.’

she very gently helps you button your pants and then nods. ‘okay.’

you breathe a sigh of relief because clarke is kind, because clarke is fun and young and wild but she’s gentle, and your brain is trying to convince your body that it’s about to die again, but later you’ll remember this moment with such tenderness.

‘let me get your coat. i’ll get you a car too.’

you follow her out, nodding, maybe, and she helps you into your coat, walks you down and makes sure you get into a black towncar, makes sure her driver knows your address.

when you get to your dorm, you knock on anya’s door and she lets you in, mostly asleep, without a word.

‘you’re here,’ she tells you, helping you out of your clothes and into her bed, while she sets up a little nest of blankets on the floor. ‘you’re in new york and it’s winter and—‘ she pauses for a moment, then lets out a laugh— ‘you have a hickey on your neck, for sure.’

it shocks you just enough, happily, that your heart slows down a bit. ‘from clarke,’ you say, and her name feels solid on your tongue, quiet and present.

‘i never would’ve guessed,’ anya drawls from the floor.

it takes you a while to fall asleep and you have nightmares, but you do have a hickey from a very pretty girl when you wake up the next day, so.

there’s that.

//

_it’s all very confusing: one minute you’re holding your piece of pizza, walking to the table you always sit at, every day, with your girlfriend and your friends. you’re tired and your hip is sore from hockey, your eyes hurt from reading the same history primary sources over and over again on the shitty library computers. costia is beautiful, though, and the pizza today looked less burnt than usual, and your uncle had promised to take you fishing this weekend._

_one minute you’re holding your piece of pizza, and you’re sixteen, and then there’s a very distinct series of pops, a single click, and your pizza is on the floor because you can’t feel your hand. your arm is on fire and it takes you a few moments, but then everyone is screaming and there are so many pops, and it’s loud._

_it occurs to you that you were shot, that this is a school shooting, that all of your classmates—your friends—are dying. Dead._

_costia is rushing to you and then there’s another pop and you’re doubled over, because you can’t breathe and you can’t see because pain is shooting up from your abdomen and everyone is screaming, everyone won’t stop screaming, and costia is brushing hair out of your eyes but you can’t breathe, and it hurts._

_‘lexa,’ costia is saying, ‘lexa.’_

_you swallow and you nod and costia is crying, and she presses down on your shoulder and then on your stomach, and you think you might pass out from the pain._

_‘don’t go to sleep,’ she says, and her tears are falling onto your face. ‘don’t fall asleep, lexa, please,’ she says, chokes out on the edge of a sob._

_‘it’s okay,’ you say, taste the copper and iodine of your own blood. you don’t know what drives you to say it, because there are so many gunshots and you know there are so many bodies but you can’t look away from costia’s perfect skin, her dark eyes, her pretty mouth. you don’t know where your friends are, and it registers somewhere that you might die, that you were shot and you have to have massive internal bleeding because you’re coughing up blood and you can’t feel your left hand._

_but costia is saying your name and trying to keep your blood in your body. she’s saying your name, over and over again, her hands pressing hard into your skin, your gut. she’s saying your name until she’s not, until she’s slumped over you in a single instant._

_you want to scream, and you hadn’t been scared until now. you want to scream but you can’t, and her breathing is ragged and she coughs up blood into the crook of your neck._

_‘it’s okay,’ you say again, as clearly as you can, as best as you can, and you feel her nod, just slightly._

_one minute ago you were sixteen years old, thinking about pizza and calculus and the federalist papers, walking to a table where you were going to sit with your friends and kiss your girlfriend, tuck your hands into the pockets of your letterman as you walked home._

_costia’s breathing stops, you feel it stop, and it’s so loud, but you hear her heart stop. maybe you don’t, maybe that’s not possible, but you’re sure you’re going to die, and costia already has. it makes you feel sick, but she’s on top of you and you can’t move anyway, you can’t feel your hands or your legs and you can’t breathe._

_one minute ago you were a child. you think you are going to die._

_you will never be a child again._

//

_anya tells you that you were asleep for four days. when you wake up in the hospital—in boston, with your shoulder shattered, your arm in a sling, two of your fingers still numb, your stomach cut open and stitched back together, from three different surgeries—when you wake up in the hospital you don’t think you’ll ever breathe again._

_anya tells you, solemnly but without crying, that 27 people died. your friends, your classmates, people who have annoyed you since kindergarten._

_you don’t have to ask if costia died because you know she died, but you ask anyway. your uncle is slumped over silently on the other side of your bed and you’re shocked you have tears left in you but you do, and the sob that works its way through your body burns._

_they send a therapist in to talk to you, and you know you have ptsd and you tell her that you don’t know if you’ll ever feel real again, that you don’t really want to try to fall in love again. that you used to care about calculus and hockey ap us history, that all you wanted to do after school was make out with a very pretty girl in the back of your jeep. that you were excited about pizza._

_she sits down and she sighs and she tells you that those things might never go away. but you tell her, a few weeks later, while you’re squeezing a stress ball as hard as you can, even though your hand isn’t working quite right, and your entire abdomen still aches when you try to stand up straight—you tell her that you still love trees. the ocean. your tidepools and all the words that have gone along with them._

_you get to go home. it’s not the same—it’s hollow and it’s empty and gustus offers to move so you don’t have to go back to the same school. but you’re better enough now to wander along the craggy cliffs with your arm tucked around his study one. you have to pause a few times climbing to the top of his lighthouse, but you make it._

_there’s a meteor shower, and you should’ve died._

_you will never be a child again but there are shooting stars. you watch them above your head, and you watch them fall silently into the water below._

//

clarke finds you on sunday morning, far before the museum is open. she has flowers and two coffees and you’re blushing already.

‘first of all, i don’t want to trigger anything,’ she says, in a rush, and it makes you smile, ‘so i just wanted to say i think you’re beautiful and maybe some time you could stay and i promise not to ruin it.’

she kind of thrusts the bouquet in your face and you grin. you’re thrilled, because clarke is usually so confident and sure, and maybe she likes you just as much as you like her.

‘someone shot me and half of my school,’ is what comes out of your mouth, even though you hadn’t intended for it to at all. you hurry to keep talking after that one. ‘you didn’t ruin anything.’

she sighs in relief. ‘okay,’ she says. ‘i’m still—you know.’

‘yeah.’

she waits a beat for you to say anything else, and when she senses that that’s it, she smiles gently and wraps her hand around your arm. you’re holding a bouquet of chrysanthemums in the dinosaur room and a pretty girl is laughing about the  _compsognathus_ , and you correct her because they lived during the jurrasic era, not the triassic, and when you’re kissing her again, beside the triceratops skeleton, it doesn’t feel nearly as terrifying as the end of your world, as the end of anything at all.


End file.
